Non-Diet Yogi

Ep 11. Wildly Accessible Food & Medicine: Foraging Edible Weeds & Bush Foods with Pat Collins

Casey Conroy, MNutrDiet, APD, YT Episode 11

Foraging for edible weeds is an accessible and inclusive healthcare skill. Pat Collins is a highly experienced herbalist, natural health practitioner and bush craftswoman with a passion for sharing her foraging know-how and instilling in people a deep appreciation of edible and medicinal weeds: nature's gifts.

In this episode:

  • How being able to support her children’s health by making at home remedies motivated Pat into studying herbal medicine formally
  • Why familiarity with the abundance of edible foods around us - and how to harvest and use them - is so valuable, especially at this time in history
  • Why Pat published her book The Wondrous World of Weeds (it wasn’t because writing books pays well!)
  • Once upon a time we were all wise women” – the need to take back our power by reclaiming our knowledge of foraging
  • The many uses of Chickweed (Stellaria media) and Paddy’s Lucerne (Sida rhombifolia)
  • Weeds grow where the soil is right for them, and will tell you what is wrong with your soil
  • Herbs in the time of COVID-19: Some of Pat’s favourite weed allies and ways to use them, to support immune and respiratory health, and to calm our nerves when “it all gets too much”
  • Which native Australian bush foods are in season right now, how can to use it – think, lemon myrtle cheesecake and bunya nut curry (!)
  • Pat’s views on MLM essential oil companies doTerra and Young Living, concerns about the safety of ingesting essential oils, and more affordable, practitioner grade alternatives to these brands
  • The beauty of using whole herbs
  • Menopause: How Pat views this powerful life stage, helpful plant allies, organ systems to take extra special care of, and how St John’s Wort helped Pat through her surprisingly tumultuous peri-menopausal years 
  • If we as a culture respected our elders, we’d have far fewer problems with menopause
  • The call for wise, old women

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